Fermentation is an interesting chemical process that turns grape juice into wonderful wines. But
when you take a blend of still wines, add a little sugar and yeast, and cap it off with a crown cap, it
becomes truly magical. This is the formula for producing world-class sparkling wine, and the recipe
for Champagne, the world’s most popular wine.
The secondary fermentation — which takes place in the very bottle you are drinking from — is what
produces the pleasing bubbles and just enough added alcohol to complete the process. The
process was an accidental discovery: In the cold cellars of France, fermentation would stop when
the temperature dropped too low; then, in the spring, after the wines were bottled, the yeast would
go back to work, infusing the wine with lovely sparkling bubbles.
The Champagne region doesn’t own the rights to bubbly, though. It is produced worldwide, with
locally available grapes, white and red, and a lot of quality sparkling comes from the U.S. and other
countries.
This is our annual look at the local offerings in the sparkling aisle. We bagged up 17 sparklers and
tasted them blind, along with appropriate appetizers, and sipped and scored them to help you pick a
solid candidate for your holiday festivities or maybe Christmas dinner.
Among the food at our tasting: smoked salmon, chopped liver pâté, an assortment of sushi,
prosciutto biscuits, Apalachicola oysters on the half shell, and a homemade shrimp dip. A raspberrychocolate mousse helped finish the evening, along with the rosés… The Bouvet Rosé was the top
pink…

Business: Movers and shakers: Patrice Monmousseau?
The Master of Riddling
Sparkling wine from France? The man at the helm of Bouvet-Ladubay has been protecting his
grandfather’s legacy for 42 years – most recently with help from East India
BY GERO VON
RANDOW
Is globalization really the steamroller that mows down all regional cultures? Does, to quote Karl Marx
and Friedrich Engels, “no other tie that binds one human to another human being remains than the naked
interest in non-emotional cash payment?” One example that allows us to beg to differ is the story of
Patrice Monmousseau, the head of Bouvet-Ladubay. The company, which is headquartered in Saumur, a
small town on the Loire River, is now owned by East Indian multi-millionaire Vijay Mallya.
Monmousseau refers to Mallya only by calling him “my Indian.”
The company is Saumur makes sparkling wine, which has not been allowed to refer to itself as
champagne since 1927. Bouvet-Ladubay is the most prominent producer of this product in town. “We
export to some 40 countries,” observes Monmousseau. “Our two largest markets are Germany and
France, where we sell 1.5 million bottles a year each.” And India? “China and India have not yet
reached this kind of market saturation, as the local populations drink very little bubbly.”
Monmousseau’s favorite term to use when he talks about his product is bulles, which means bubbles in
English and he sometimes refers to it as bubbly, like the British would.
The company uses the traditional method to make its bubbly, i.e. it is allowed to reach perfection in the
bottle, just like champagne. The only difference is that Monmousseau produces the base wines primarily
from regionally typical grapes, such as the Chenin Blanc and the Cabernet Franc. “My grandfather still
used to transport barrels of base wine from the Loire to the Champagne, which was destined to become
champagne,” reports Monmousseau. “Today all of that has been separated. Fifteen years ago, they even
imposed a law that prohibits labeling our wine “methode champanois.” But actually, that was a blessing
for us. After all, now people found out that what we do here is different – something all our own.” In
fact, many of his best products are not only equivalent to champagne, but have their own special
regional characteristics and they are significantly less expensive.
The company, which was established by Etienne Bouvet in 1851, had previously reached its current
production volumes – back in the belle epoch. However, the downturn began during World War I and in
1932 the company was on the auction block. “My grandfather, who owned a winery in the Touraine
Region, won the auction,” explains Monmousseau “to irk a rival company.” The new company was
under his son’s management and attained moderate success. The grandson, on the other hand – little
Patrice – was educated in Catholic boarding schools to acquire a decent education. At the age of 16, he
did, however, escape the strict priests and instead tried his luck as a car mechanic until he dared to ask
his father to let him work at the latter’s company. His father made him start from the ground up – he had
to clean toilets, stack up boxes. Nevertheless, Patrice made his way up the ranks slowly and was
permitted to sell wines. Ultimately, he was allowed to participate in the assemblage – which is the term
used to describe the blending of various base wines, which aims at ensuring consistent taste and quality
levels.
Family feuds eventually resulted in Bouvet-Ladubay’s sale to Taittinger in 1974. Taittinger was a
champagne manufacturer steeped in tradition, which also owned luxury hotels. Back then, 31-year-old
Patrice had been at the helm of the business for three years. During the sale, his negotiation skills were
so impressive that Claude Taittinger left him in his leadership position. He gave the young man
complete management leeway and he generated ten times the revenues for Bouvet-Ladubay over a
period of 30 years.
Things went well until a dispute arose within Taittinger and “we were suddenly called Starwood in
2005,” remembers Monmousseau. The managers of the American investment fund firm, who owned
Starwood Hotels, “came and told us: >We are not wine experts by any means, so we will sell everything
to the Champagne and will only keep the hotels.< The alarm bells went off in my head when I heard

that. Contrary to what had happened with Taittinger, this would have put our autonomy in jeopardy. It
was quite a battle until I was given the go-ahead to find my own buyer for Bouvet-Ladubay. They
showed me a list, which also had the name of my Indian on it.”
There’s a European economic crisis? Well, that means the French drink even more sparkling
wine.
He came, looked at the business and bought it. He paid EUR 15 million. “Love at first glance,” is how
Monmousseau describes it. Vijay Mallay is apparently a bon vivant who has diamond studs in his ears.
He is the owner of United Breweries and did know a lot about the distribution of alcoholic beverages.
“With him on board, I thought, we can buy a true factory to produce not 3.5 million bottles a year, but
six million. I talked to him about it and he asked: <How do you think we should finance that?>. I said:
<I’ll take out a loan and pay it back myself.>” That’s exactly what happened. Backed by a guarantee
from the large conglomerate, Monmousseau was able to collect the required EUR 12.5 million loan. “I
called the vintners, the banks and the press to a meeting and showed them our plan on a large screen – a
highly automated plant boasting 14,000 square meters and told them: <We can boost our production to
6.4 million bottles a year.> At first, they just laughed and laughed some more.” Today, Monmousseau
has reached the 6.5 million bottles mark and is aiming for 8 million.
The plant, which he calls “Full Metal”, is a single floor industrial hangar structure with a classic
entrance portal, which is reached by way of a palm lined driveway. This is where the base wines are
being stored and turned into sparkling wines. The famous riddling (remuage) of the bottles, which are
stored with their tops facing down, and which was once done manually by master of riddling, is now an
automated process. After all, the movement of the hand performed by the “remueurs” in order to
accelerate the transportation of the yeast into the bottleneck is a simple one and the sole deciding factor
is the timing and the storage angle.
“Have a look at these de-gorging machines. In the past this was brutal manual labor,” explains
Monmousseau. Once the yeast and its by-products have traveled to the bottleneck during the second
fermentation, the bottleneck is shock cooled with ammonia nitrogen. The crown cork is removed from
the bottle top and the ice block containing the yeast is catapulted out of the bottle. The bottle is refilled.
All of these processes are handled by a machine. Even the transportation of the bottles no longer strains
anyone’s back, as these jobs are now handled by yellow robots, which are equipped with powerful yet
sensitive pneumatics. The few workers left at the “Bouvet Full Metal” say “Hello Patrice” when they
pass us by.
More than 6 million bottles per year are now being handled by just 54 employees, of which more than
half work in sales or administrative positions – that is the result of consistent lean management. It would
have been impossible for the business to grow had it not been for this approach. Nowadays, about 80
vintner families who live in Saumur and environs are working for Bouvet-Ladubay. It’s a blessing for
the region. Indian millions, the world market, a medium-sized production facility, small farmers – and it
all works well together.
When the factory was built in 2008, the economic crisis was imminent. According to Patrice, it did not
have an adverse impact on bubbly sales. “During such times, everyone wants to treat themselves –
especially if it is not that expensive.” This is in particular true in France, where the rags write pages and
pages about champagne, foie gras and other delights before any major holiday and where even discount
supermarkets offer oysters right around those days.
Now that we have completed our tour of the plant, we go into town, visit the market and end up in a
bistro. This man is as French as brie, but he has an easy time making fun of the stuck-up ways of many
of the other Frenchmen, who “do not speak English as a matter of principle and who, if they travel
abroad on a vacation at all, might end up in Tunisia and would not dare explore any other place.
France’s vintners are a true exception, they are actual globetrotters.” His wife is from Sweden, his
mother is English. A man with that kind of a background will likely not be able to relate to the notables
of the small provincial town he lives in.
The town reaps numerous benefits from the presence of Bouvet-Ladubay. One reason is that Patrice is a
walking event agency. A car enthusiast, he sponsored the 24-hour race of Le Mans, until new law
prohibited advertising for alcohol at sports events. Hence, he moved on to the arts and literature. Every
year since, Samur has been the venue for a literature festival, which draws an audience of thousands.
Famous and eternally misunderstood authors come here, as do vintners from the region along with their
wines. Lots of ideas take root here; gallons of sparkling wine are served. Sometimes even Gerard
Depardieu stops by, grabs a grilled chicken from the kitchen along with a glass of wine and makes a

brief but interesting speech. The event concludes with a fireworks display, which also matches
Monmousseau’s grandeur. There are tons of loud bangs and the thunder definitely rolls. One time, one
of the walls surrounding Chateau Samur actually collapsed.
Whenever Monmousseau hosts a feast, expect some walls to collapse.
Patrice knows that the bubbly has to be infused with a symbolic charge and that is one of the reasons he
hosts these events. He had the old theater building, which the founder of the company had erected for
his wife in his day, carefully restored – with lots of plush adornments, putti and pomp. The art museum,
which is part of the property, on the other hand, features a modernistic style and houses contemporary
sculptures and paintings. The company also owns an underground cathedral: a gigantic hollow room,
which was cut into the tufa a long time ago to harvest construction materials for churches and castles.
Today illuminated sculptures are on display here, reflecting the town’s history. This is where the base
wines are stored in barrels to ripen.
Whenever Patrice gets to enjoy a quiet moment, he likes to sit in one of the typical flat wooden boats
one sees linger on the Loire. He revs up the engine, opens a bottle, grabs a baguette to eat and some
local charcuterie. Simple joys. A boat moves by slowly, occupied by a grandfatherly type who toasts us
with a glass of red wine. We pass an island that spans four hectares. Patrice owns it and has baptized it
“Free Republic.” He’s appointed famous business partners his ministers. Director Claude Chabrol, for
instance, who passed away in 2010, was the pig leg’s minister, while actress Macha Meril still holds the
position of minister of smiles and their consequences.
At his company, everything focuses on Patrice – according to Patrice. He turned 70 this July. The time
of transition has begun. He had decided to make his daughter Juliette his successor. The 34-year-old
who has the blonde hair of a Swede, studied graphic design in Paris and has previously worked as a
movie producer. She has recently returned to Samur and is the head of the sales department. Soon, all
eyes will be upon her. She will make decisions in the assemblage, on the assortment, the strategy – she
will be the one; not some numbers cruncher in India.
Well over a dozen years ago, liberal entrepreneur Alain Minc wrote a book on “Happy Globalization.” It
earned him a lot of ridicule in France. In Samur, one can take a tour that proves that this phenomenon
does actually exist.

Box:
Sparkling Wine
Production
Wine is the commodity used to make champagne and other sparkling wines. Once must has fermented
into wine, vintners allow the wine to ferment a second time by adding yeast and sugar to bottles and by
sealing them with drown corks. After the fermentation process is complete, they store the bottles with
their necks pointing downward and shake them – either manually or with a machine. As a result, the
yeast settles above the cork. Finally, they immerse the bottles into ice water to freeze the yeast so that it
can be removed. After this step, the bottles are sealed with a champagne cork.
Drinking
According to estimates of the German Wine Institute, more than two billion bottles of sparkling wine
are sold around the globe each and every year. Every fifth bottle is consumed in Germany – an
international record. In 2012, every German drank an average of six 0.75-liter bottles of sparkling wine
based on information provided by the German Federal Statistics Office. The French and the Russians
love their drinks as well. In China and India, consumption is still expected to rise according to
projections of the TNS market research institute. Worldwide, the market is expected to grow by two
percent.